“Regression to 1953” in the government’s legislative notice on abortion in 14 weeks[플랫]

The government announces a legislative amendment to the Criminal Law and the Maternal and Child Health Law, which maintains the crime of abortion on the 7th as soon as possible, but allows abortion (abortion) up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. It has been approximately 1 year and 6 months since the Constitutional Court ruled against abortion under criminal law inconsistent with the constitution. Women’s organizations, which have called for the complete decriminalization of the termination of pregnancy, strongly opposed it.

As a result of the interview on the 6th, the government announced a legislative notice on the 7th when it comes to amendments to the Criminal Law and the Morgan Law for the Mother and Child related to abortion. This legislative draft is the result of the decision of the Constitution of incongruity with the Constitution of articles 269 and 270 of the Penal Code, which contained a penalty for the suspension of pregnancy in April of last year and requested that the law be amended before 31 December December this year. The government presents a bill to the National Assembly after gathering opinions for at least 40 days from the date of the legislative notice.

The preliminary legislative proposal is that women (pregnant women) will not be penalized for abortion until the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. However, it has been reported that termination of pregnancy is only possible when there are socioeconomic reasons or pregnancy for sexual offenses up to 24 weeks, the middle of the pregnancy. It was also found that there was also a provision that allowed women to terminate pregnancy for socio-economic reasons after receiving counseling at designated institutions, such as public health centers, and after a certain period of deliberation. The Maternal and Child Health Act will also be amended, including a provision to “allow abortion surgery.” It is known that the draft bill for the revision of the Maternal and Child Health Act strongly stipulated the doctor’s right to refuse treatment in connection with the termination of pregnancy.

Members of “Joint Action to Abolish Abortion Crimes for All” are holding a press conference on the 28th of last month at the Sejong Center for the Abolition of Abortion Crimes; the abolition of abortion crimes is the answer. Reporter Lee Jun-heon

Last month, the government completed the final work to prepare a draft Criminal Law and the Maternal and Child Health Law related to abortion. The Prime Minister’s Office is reported to have convened officials from five ministries last month, including the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Some ministries, such as the Ministry of Women, were in a position to completely abolish the crime of abortion, but other ministries were reported to be strongly opposed to this. Opinions were also known to have been divided within the Ministry of Justice, which is the main ministry.

The 14th week of gestation is one of the periods that must be guaranteed for the interruption of pregnancy, which the Constitution proposed in the decision of constitutional disagreement on abortion. The constitutional judges who gave a simple unconstitutional opinion at the time said: “In the ‘first trimester of pregnancy’ (around 14 weeks from the first day of the last menstrual period), a pregnant woman should be able to have an abortion at her own consideration and judgment “. They suggested when they should be around 14 weeks pregnant.

The constitutional decision and the government’s legislative notice appear to be based on the ‘Triarter System’ of the ‘Roe vs. Wade ‘, who recognized the right to terminate a pregnancy for the first time in the United States. In this 1973 ruling, the United States Supreme Court ruled that after dividing the gestation period into three periods, in the first trimester (1-12 weeks) of pregnancy, a woman could terminate the pregnancy in accordance with constitutional rights . In the second trimester of pregnancy (13 ~ 24 weeks), the state could be involved in the process of terminating the pregnancy, as it could cause harm to the health of the woman.

The government bill contradicts the recommendations of the Gender Equality Policy Committee, an advisory body to the Ministry of Justice, announced in August. At the time, the committee said: “Every person has different physical conditions and circumstances, and there are many cases where the exact number of weeks of pregnancy cannot be recognized or confirmed. It is contrary to the clarity of the rules of criminal punishment to establish a certain number of weeks of pregnancy and whether it is punished or not ”. A committee official said: “The committee demanded the decriminalization of termination of pregnancy beyond what the constitution suggested, but the government seems to have followed the level of opinion suggested by the constitution.”

Women’s groups criticized the government’s legislative notice as a bill that did not reflect women’s voices and was backtracking from the constitutional decision. Kim Ye-eun, CEO of ‘Everybody’s Feminism,’ said: “The abortion legislation was not discussed at all in the public forum. The government did not listen to women’s groups. The problem was that they agreed and announced themselves in the closed room ”.

Kim Min Moon-jung, co-chair of the Korean Women’s Association, said: “The perception of abandoning the responsibility of the state and giving responsibility only to women was the same as when criminal abortion was enacted in 1953. It is a regression to 1953 He said: “We are going to revive the punishment of historically private abortion.” “The fact that decriminalizing abortion does not increase the rate of pregnancy termination has been confirmed historically and in several countries,” she said. “How much criminal punishment would violate the basic rights of women and put the lives of women at greater risk. It has already confirmed the constitution, but the government is closing its eyes.”

●
Reporter Bora Lee [email protected]